Usama Zakir: The man who is behind a reading revolution at Shaheen Bagh

In December last year, Ladeeda Farzana, Ayesha Renna and two other women became national symbols of courage. When, Shaheen Abdulla, their male friend and co-student at Delhi’s Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI), was dragged out on to the road and beaten by foul-mouthed policemen, the women threw themselves on to Abdulla, shielding him from the brutal attack. The hijab-clad young women were simply defending their friend but for Usama Zakir, a 30-year-old research scholar and lecturer at Jamia’s department of English, they were creating history. “These young women broke existing gender binaries in ways that go beyond just their actions. They have empowered an entire section of Muslim women to speak up and resist,” says Zakir.

Zakir, who teaches translation theory and poetry, looks at everything through the prism of poetry and has been writing in Urdu and English for more than six years. He has written multiple poems on the women of Shaheen Bagh, celebrating their femininity and their non-violent but stern protest. One of them begins with, “Badhi hi naazuk hai ungliyaan yeh / Har ek naare par uth rahi hain / Hawa mai lalkar bhar rahi hai / Magar chamatkar ho raha hai…” (Look at these delicate fingers being lifted with every slogan, challenging and magical.)

He explains that most of the women protesters in the now-fabled Shaheen Bagh neighbourhood who sit patiently in a big, yellow tent, night and day, are mothers. Their fierce energy, one that keeps them away from domestic chores and pushes them into a realm where their language and voices have begun to matter, is a manifestation of the neighbourhood experiencing a historic moment. The women of Shaheen Bagh were expressing themselves full-throatedly, but what of their children, wondered Zakir.

Two weeks ago, Zakir started “India Reads India Resists”, a space for children but one that is open to anyone who wants to read and dip into Zakir’s repository of books. Set up with the help of his cousin Younis Nomani and his friend Vasundhara Gautam, both graduate students at Jamia, the tiny nook opposite the protest tent serves as the space for this resistance. Here, children between the ages of five and 15 come to read, make posters and learn. One 70-year-old man, now reading his third Premchand novel here, comes every day to spend a couple of hours in the presence of books, posters and slogans. “Young children are chanting slogans that they do not even understand. We want to channelise their anger, their frustration, their energy into an outcome that is productive and positive,” says Zakir.

For the younger lot (ages 5 to 12), poster-making and storytelling are two ways in which they express themselves. Posters on the violence in Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and the bushfires in Australia, all make it to the walls of this nook. The posters are replaced each day with new ones. The teenagers of Shaheen Bagh read the Preamble to the Constitution, line by line, along with a copy of the contentious Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) to understand the remarkable inclusiveness of the former and the exclusionary and divisive aspects of the latter. They are taught mindfulness and given reading material so that they can arm themselves with arguments and information when they resume school and may be confronted by “pro-CAA students”. “We want them to be able to have rational conversations and breed love,” says Zakir.

Storyteller Himanshu Bajpai and puppeteer Anurupa Roy have made their way to this nook as well, attracting even more children to come and spend their days learning at a time when normal life has come to a standstill in the neighbourhood.

In two weeks, Zakir and his friends have managed to affect the lives of 500 children and young adults. They are now in talks with NGOs, artists and other local bodies to see what shape this movement can take to fuel what Zakir calls a revolution.